Monday, July 23, 2007

102. Thank Youse VII

Thank you James Schevill "How he rolled down night streetsLike a barrel heaved from side to side;How his heavy, high forehead,Great chunk of a headstone,Loomed over the polished barsIn a frenzy of glass-shaking laughter."

Thank you Carol Rumens "Oh smiling children, dangerously gifted ones,take care that you learn to ask why,for the room you are in is also history.Consider your sweet compliancein the light of that day when the bookis torn from your hand;when, to answer correctly the teacher's command,you must speak for this ice, this dark."

Thank you Thomas Merton"How slowly this bell tolls in a monastery tower for awhole age, and for the quick death of an unreadydynasty, and for that brave illusion: the adventurousself!"

Thank you Diane Ackerman"The big picture: as a nuanced listenerand ecologist of the psyche,you do see the forest for the trees,but not many of my quirky tastes,only a scattering of oaseswhere my curiosity dines,just a peek at the closet meditationswhere I store my moods,rarely a health update, preciousfew of my raving passions."

Thank you Charles Bukowski "when it is truly time,and if you have been chosen,it will do it byitself and it will keep on doing ituntil you die or it dies in you.there is no other way.and there never was."

Thank you Eavan Boland"The Gaelic world stretches out under a hawthorn treeand burns in the rain. This is its home,its last frail shelter. All of it—Limerick, the Wild Geese and what went before—falters into cadence before he sleeps:He shuts his eyes. Darkness falls on it."

Thank you Elizabeth Bishop"The gracious royal coupleswere warm in red and ermine;their feet were well wrapped upin the ladies' ermine trains.They invited Arthur to bethe smallest page at court.But how could Arthur go,clutching his tiny lily,with his eyes shut up so tightand the roads deep in snow?"

Thank you F.T. Prince "For we know nothing but that, long ago,We learnt to love God whom we cannot know.I touch your eyelids that one day must close,Your lips as perishable as a rose:And say that all must face, before we knowThe thing we know of but we do not know."